In the manufacture of glass articles, such as glasses, glass light bulbs of the round type, etc., once the said articles have been manufactured in the appropiate machine, it is neccesary to transfer them through the use of adequate means to a cutting machine where the excess glass from articles are cut and the article is given a final finish. Once the operation has been undertaken, the said articles are transported to a tempering furnace in which they are relieved of stresses accumulated in the process of their manufacture.
The feeding of the glass articles to the cutting machine for cutting the excess glass from articles is not new since there exist diverse and varied patents in this field. However, one of the goals looked for is the production of articles of the best quality possible, at a high production rate and at a lesser cost.
An example of glass cutting machines is shown in the Mexican Patent Ser. No. 198,198 (U.S. Pat. No. 4,572,732). With this type of machine the loading and unloading of articles is done manually, and because of this a certain number of workers is needed in order to carry out the cutting operation.
Therefore, the invention that is presented here is related with the before mentioned cutting machines. Said invention will have as its object, receiving, feeding and delivering the glass articles that come from a forming machine to the said cutting machine in order to cut off the excess glass. The articles can be loaded and unloaded onto and from of machines for cutting glass articles through the use of an article transference mechanism.
This type of apparatus, made up of three geometrically placed stations 120.degree. from each other will have the functions of receiving, feeding and delivering the glass articles, and the same is done at each station independently from each other. The said apparatus can receive at any of its stations the articles that come from the forming machine, and once it receives them it rotates towards another position in order to feed the articles to the burners of a cutting machine where the excess glass is removed. Once this operation is finished, the apparatus rotates again in order to deliver the articles to a transference mechanism which transports them on an assembly line belt to the tempering furnace.
This three station apparatus includes a series of supporting arms, which only open at the reception and delivery position of the article. This operation allows the articles transported by the transference mechanism to be freely handled by the supporting arms of said apparatus at the moment of loading and unloading.